Antifreeze
by WonderlandSyndrome
Summary: Emotional bonds with artificial subjects can be just as meaningful. - Vexen & Fan-child One-shot


**Characters/Pairings:** Vexen, Xaviera/other characters and pairings from main story **Time Period:** Post-KHII/Chap. 9-12 of the main story **Rating/Warnings**: K+/"family" issues and the like, fan-children, fan-sequal

Related to my main story _Just One More Chance_. As people have asked before, "Xaviera" is spoken as "zay-vee-EHR-ah".

* * *

Xaviera is pale.

Wrapped up in the white sheets, laid out on the white mattress, in the white medical room, she resembles a ghost; a tiny spectre in the sea of bleach and snow.

The young miss is sleeping peacefully, as she has always done so. Her sandy-blonde hair is draped across the pillows and framing her narrow face, and she is breathing slowly and calmly through her thin, slightly flushed lips. She appears tiny and frail, like a snowflake. She is a very attractive little fake.

Vexen sighs, resting his chin on his folded arms. He doesn't know how long he has been kneeling by the bed, studying her slumbering form. He had lost track of time a while ago as he sat there thinking. All the replicas are now fully formed, and it is now the waiting which is driving everyone slowly, ever-so slowly crazy. Especially Vexen, whose insane idea it was from the very beginning. It was a pure moment of madness that he needed to feed, and allow to bloom into a real product. Xaviera is just one part of the product to result from this experiment.

The man brushes his index finger over the girl's highly defined cheekbone. She doesn't stir, just sleeps. She is cold to the touch. Like any mage, she is an embodiment of her element and is as cool as ice water. She is very accurate bodily as far as pre-pubescent girls go, although she looks a little on the scrawny side for a ten year old. She has everything she needs: two eyes, two ears, a nose, and mouth with a whole set of teeth and a tongue, and even tonsils. She has all the correct amount of fingers and toes, and all the major organs are accounted for. Even her heart, although manufactured, is beating a healthy rhythm within her ribcage.

_And she will not be a failure, _Vexen tells himself sharply. _She will not be another Riku Replica, and become corrupted and ruined by selfish people. She will be not a perfect being, but rather a great, almost normal, human-like creature._

She is unique, so Vexen gave her a name to match. He gave her a moniker that is uncommon amounts the people of Radiant Gardens - Xaviera. It means bright, splendid. He is sure that no one else has the same name on this planet.

"Now if you will just wake up," he grumbles, "then I wouldn't look like such a fool kneeling by your bed as if I'm praying for you."

Xaviera just sleeps on, tormenting him farther. The horrible little monster.

Vexen picks up one of her bony arms by the wrist, feels the pulse under her thin skin, and then drops it. It bounces slightly on the bed before going still again. The man huffs, completely fed-up now. He had done every check-up and test he could do on her, and now he is growing very bored with nothing to do.

…_I didn't do every experiment…_

He thinks about this for a moment. It is not properly tested but the hormones are… No! He shouldn't been doing this, nor even thinking about such a thing… but he's going to do it anyway.

From his inside lab coat pocket, he pulls out of a silver case. Within the case, there is a syringe and a vial of thick, translucent liquid. The test rats showed no obvious negative effects from the liquid, and he too didn't show any anomalies when he injected some into his own arm.

The task is simple enough, made simpler because the patient is not fidgeting or protecting. He fills the syringe and pierces the skin of Xaviera's upper arm, and the muscle spasms for a moment, due to the sudden prick from the needle. He injects the mixture and removes the syringe, rubbing the spot with a clean tissue.

"Don't tell anyone about this," Vexen mumbles into the girl's ear. "We'll be in deep trouble if anyone finds out…"

He takes her silence as a promise.

**OOO**

Being a scientist for the Committee reminds Vexen of his old days as Even. He works all day (most of it through annoying paperwork) then he can have the evenings off. Sometimes he would go out somewhere with the others - dinner, the movies, spending time in a pub or inn, other trivial normal activities - or relax in solitude.

He is (now) a man of simple pleasures, and life was going easy… Well, somewhat easy. People don't trust the Organization one little bit, and the addition of smaller look-a-likes will just cause more problems… But then again, it is just twelve children, and they were going to make lives of many all the more safe in the future. Hopefully, after a few years, things will turn out for the bet-

"Ahhh!"

A high-pitched, screeching scream of a little girl carries through the corridors, painful and haunting to any listener unlucky hear it, but Vexen doesn't freeze in shock like everyone else nearby. Instead, he jumps out of his chair, and it falls to the ground with a heavy clunk as he runs down the hallways, pushing passed servants of the castle, apologising quickly to everyone he knocks over.

There are no young females in the palace, apart from the five artificial sweethearts in deep sleep within the medical rooms.

Well… he _hopes_ there are still five girls sleeping.

This is impossible. They are not scheduled to wake up for another fortnight or so. There is no way in Hell that-

He remembers.

"Oh, Gods. The hormones…"

The scientist quickens his pace, and literally crashes through the door of the medic room. Only then does he freeze, his eyes wide at the slight of the shivering, gasping lass sat bolt upright in the bed, her sharp nails stabbed into the bed sheets like sets of claws or talons, brow soaked in a cold sweat, her body and mind in complete shock from the awakening and the her first experience of the world, being more accustom to the realm of slumber.

She stares at him with her eyes which copy his, only slightly wider and clearer. They are pigment green irises, full of fear, and strangely enough, curiosity, as if she wants to know who in the names of the Gods this man is and why he is staring at her like she just fell from the sky.

Vexen covers his mouth with his hands, just blinking. He looks for something positive.

"Well… At least I know what the hormones can do now…"

**OOO**

"What am I going to say? Hell, what _can_ say to them?"

Vexen can do little more than pace up and down the length of the bed, raking his finger through his ash-blond hair from time to time, so close to pulling it out at the roots.

While he muttered and babbled to himself, like a loony, Xaviera - who is now well aware of her existence, her identity, her name, and that Vexen is someone she can utterly trust - is calmly eating her way through a bowl of pork ravioli in tomato sauce. Vexen had brought it to her as soon as her first words - "my stomach is grumbling" - escaped her lips. It was difficult for her to work out the fork at first, so Vexen helped her find her dominate hand (it's her left) and taught her how to hold it properly.

"Why don't you sit down?" Xaviera asks, before blowing lightly at her pasta and putting it into her mouth. The mild heat hurts her tongue at first, but the taste made her go on and she got used to it. "You are going to wear yourself out, if you keep moving about like that."

"No. I need to think. Moving like this helps me think."

"…Okay," and she goes back to eating, glancing at the flustered scientist from time to time over her plate.

After a time, Vexen pauses and presses his fingers to his temples. He takes a deep breath.

"Alright…" he closes his eyes tightly, until his nose wrinkles and his teeth grind together. "I must explain this to everyone, but I can't obviously tell them I put a foreign substance into her. They will take it so badly and-" Xaviera giggles softly under her breath, and Vexen opens his eyes, glaring at her as she just smirks back at him. "What are you sniggering at?"

"When you pull that face, there is a blue vein visible on your forehead. Just here." She taps the right side of her skull. Vexen tries his best not to feel offended by a child.

"…Xaviera." The old man sits on the edge on the bed and makes her put down her fork for a moment. "What I did to you was not wise. I should not have thought about it at all. I did not know what it would do to you, and I _especially_ did not know it would force you into early awakening."

Xaviera wiped her mouth with the napkin before answering. "If you didn't know, you didn't know. That's what science is all about, right? Taking risks and discovering new things."

"But I shouldn't have risked _your life_." Vexen tucks a stand of loose hair behind his ear. "You suddenly woke up in terrible shock from just a small dose. Too much, and it could have easily killed you."

"In the name of science," the girl says casually, shrugging and that worries Vexen, seeing that the likely chance of her death does not scare her. Do all children think so little about dying?

"…Did you like the food?" he asks, looking to change the subject.

Xaviera smiles and nods. "It was yummy." The dish is placed on the bedside table with a clatter and she takes up her glass of water. "It burned my mouth a little but it was very lovely in texture and flavour."

"That's impossible. It was at the right-" Before Vexen, could finish, he is proven wrong as the child sticks out her tongue and he sees it looks more red then the normal pink muscle is was beforehand. "…temperature… I guess your body needs to adjust and get used to warmth."

"I guess." The girl presses her lips together, as if musing over something. "I mean, ice is only present in extremely cold-"

"Vexen!"

The door flies open, and Leon is standing there. Behind him, Yuffie looks around his arm and, as she sees the fully-awake ice girl, her dark eyes widen.

"Holy cow."

"Some people told me that a little girl was screaming" Leon says, eyes narrowing.

"…Sorry, sir," Xaviera smiles sheepishly, and Vexen clamps a hand over her mouth, although it was a little too late for that.

**OOO**

They believed in his cock-and-bull story about pre-mature awakening.

Vexen had come up with a theory about pre-mature awakening, similar to pre-mature labour, explaining why Xaviera is alive and kicking and they believed him. Well, it seemed like they did. Leno did take Xaviera to one side to ask her questions privately, away from her guardian's aid, but the girl kept shushed, being quite the good little actress and said nothing that would get her "daddy" into trouble. Leon gave up after a few days. He didn't tell the Mouse King either, as it may have started an unneeded uproar.

When she was well, and could walk around on her own, the child was moved from the medical room to Vexen's sofa, until he got her a proper bed. Aerith and Cloud were kind enough to collect clothing for Xaviera from the market. The usual stuff - underwear, socks, shoes, skirts, jumpers, pyjamas - and stuff she needed like a toothbrush and a hairbrush and bedding.

Vexen hasn't told the rest of the Organization about his early riser yet. He wants to find the right time to tell and it just hasn't arrived yet (or so he says.) Xaviera is eager to meet them, after seeing them all in Vexen's photographs, remembering all their names and laughing at the stories about them the old man tells her.

She has his laugh. She chuckles softly but throaty when slightly amused, and cackles shrilly when entirely pleased and in joyful hysteria. When they are both feeling giddy and full of glee, the noise can cause headaches. Luckily, it only happens every other evening, and the volume depends on how much Vexen has drunk that night.

Vexen has learned a lot about Xaviera in a matter of a few days: her favourite colour is shamrock green, she cannot eat cheese in solid form but melted on pizza is fine, she loves foxes (especially fennec foxes), when she tugs at his belt annoyingly it means that she wants to be picked up, and her personal choice for sweet is Turkish delight. (Yuffie offered her a piece to see if she would eat it. The two consumed the entire box in a matter of minutes.)

He also learned that she is a tinker. She likes machinery and finding out how everything works. She dismantled the kettle one early morning, much to Vexen's dismay, but she managed to put it back together before they sat down for breakfast, so they could have tea with the waffles.

There was a time when Vexen had lots of work to do, so he asked Aerith to take the child off his hands for an hour or so. The woman took Xaviera by the hand down to the gummi ship hanger, to show her all the different ways of universal transport. Cid didn't want the ice kid down there, and he protested straight away.

"This is a place of work. Not a damn nursery for Vexen's urchin."

"She _can_ understand you, Cid" Aerith told him, brow furrowing slightly. She put one hand on her hip, the other still clasped around Xaviera's chilled, gloved fingers. "She will behave, and she won't get in the way. You let Yuffie down here, don't you?"

"Yeah, but she's twenty. Not ten." He paused for a moment and looked down at the child. She looked at him with her large green eyes, then put on a sweet, 'trust me' smile which showed off her top teeth. He reluctantly gave in. "Fine. The brat can stay. For a little while." He turned his back to the pleased girls and walked away from them, pulling a packet of cigarettes and a lighter from his jacket pocket. "Fucking Organization and their stupid plan. Bloody Vexen, making my workshop into a goddamn playground…"

However, when Vexen came by to retrieve Xaviera later in the day, Cid was singing a whole different tune. It turned out that the lass loved the idea of gummi science and ended up helping the pilot with some repairs on the damaged ships. He smiled and said that "the little frostbite wasn't so bad" and even went as far as saying she could come back again to help out, and he will "pay her handsomely for her troubles."

She still comes back at the end of every visit with her hands full of coins, sometimes with candy if Cid is short of cash. He once gave her his spare, second-hand toolbox with all the correct gear. Vexen made her keep it in the hanger, not his quarters, after he returned home to find the washing machine dismantled.

**OOO**

In turn, Xaviera has learned a few things about her elder: Vexen writes with his left hand too, he likes to eat cookies and biscuits while he is doing his paperwork, and he is not very good at organizing his personal space as he is with his experiments.

She has also learned that he is defiantly not a morning person, and she is often the one to make her own breakfast on the weekend mornings, and had to make do with watching cartoon until he finally decided to get up.

As she is pulling out a bowl for her cereal, when there is a knock at the door. She stops, wondering if she should answer it. She remembers that she was not allowed to answer it, as Vexen told her she was not.

There is another knock, this time a little louder and she runs to answer it. Well, it could be Mister Leonhart, or Mister Strife, and she know Daddy would never, even want to be on their bad side.

She unlatches the locks, finds the key in the plant pot, and manages to unhitch the chain by standing on her tiptoes. She turns the door handle, accidentally letting the door swing open with a large bang.

At the door are two strangers, both men, who look ever so astonished to see her. Xaviera is surprised too. One man is like a giant, well-built and strong-looking, with craggy features and dark eyes and short, wild, curled brown hair with stands of copper and bronze. The other is much smaller, paler and slimmer, with clear eyes and slate-coloured bangs which fall into his heart-shaped face. They look familiar. She has seen them somewhere before. Oh, where was it…

After a long time of just staring at each other, the bigger gentleman clears his throat.

"Ahem. Erm… Hello" he says in his deep voice. He tries his best to smile warmly. "What is your name, little one?"

"…_Xaviera_" the girl answers. She takes one step forward, and the younger man five steps back sharply, as if scared of her. She remembers them from the photos. "Are you Lexaeus and Zexion?"

"Yes, we are" the older man - his name is Lexaeus - answers.

"Are you here to see Daddy?"

Another pause.

"If that's what you call Vexen, yes. We would like to see him."

"Come in."

The men enter and the door closes behind them.

**OOO**

The Organization suspected him of foul play from the very moment they saw the child up and about. The cat was let out of the bag, and they are now trying to grow accustomed to the sight of Xaviera wherever Vexen goes. She will always clomp in her too-big boots after him everywhere he went, never more than a handful of metres away from his side.

"She's like a lil' duckling," Xigbar jokes, and Luxord arches a brow at him.

"How is she like a duckling?" the other man asks.

"You know." The sniper keeps on grinning as he explains his reasons. "When a duck hatches out of his egg, the first thing he sees moving, normally the mum, they start to follow them around everywhere."

"So," Luxord smiles, "Xavi has duckling syndrome and Vexen is her mother duck."

"I don't think Vexen is like a duck" Xigbar says, shaking his head. "I think he is more of a goose. Sounds like one anyway."

**OOO**

The way Xaviera acts is always up for discussion. Or at least, the similarity and differences she and Vexen carry.

She is more playful then the man and darts about the place, looking over people's shoulders, pointing at their work, helpfully exclaims "that's wrong" before running off out of the room as they make a grab for her. Frustratingly for them, she is correct 99.9% of the time. The other 0.1%, she is half-correct.

She also has proper childish hissy fits, crying stressed tears when cranky or when she doesn't get her own way, so Vexen forces her stand in the corner. Xaviera makes sure no one forgets about her while she is there by kicking the wall in a continuous steady rhythm - _thump, thump, thump - _until her ten minutes is over, or Vexen can't take it anymore and lets her off early, ordering her to go into the courtyard and _not to bother him for the rest of the day!_

That is another thing. It seems they sometime have fights just for the sake of fighting. It's like two savage dogs barking and snarling. Xaviera once caused a jug of water to freeze suddenly and explode under her rage, sending shards everywhere. However, later all is forgiven and forgotten. Or maybe just forgotten, because either of them ever say sorry. Never.

**OOO**

As Xaviera piles up gummi blocks carefully in an orderly order repetitively, Xaldin muttered something about autism.

"Ridiculous!" Vexen hisses. "She does not have autism."

"It would explain for her odd emotional behaviour and the way she acts with others," the lancer shrugs. Vexen knows that his tampering may have caused some mental problems with the girl, if not her death, however he has his own reason for her actions, and the way she treats people and how she reacts.

"Xaldin, there is a difference between a child who has autism and Xaviera" Vexen explains. "The difference being that an autistic child cannot help acting socially difficult, and Xaviera knows very well what she is doing, but rather chooses to be a troublesome, awkward, rude prat with a authority complex just to annoy the hell out of people."

"Like you."

"Like m- Watch it! Now for the last time, she does not have autism." He looks at the child, watching her chew on the new screwdriver's handle idly as she muses. "…Pica, maybe, but defiantly not autism."

**OOO**

Word and gossip spreads quickly between the locals of Radiant Gardens' capital city, thanks to the servants working in the castle. First, it was just rumours, but yes, there is indeed already a little imperfect copy of the Chilly Academic skipping through the echoing halls, humming sweetly. Of course, the people of the city are a buzz with worry about the living taboo. Vexen gets all the slander in the streets while Xaviera stays within the gates.

The girl isn't a blind fool, however. She hears the castle staff muttering as she walks on by, and when she looks over her shoulder, they scatter out of sight. It makes her feel sad.

"People talk about me," she says blankly one night over dinner, pushing her leftover peas around the plate. "Don't they?"

Vexen hesitates. She studies her, but not in the way he used to view her, like he would for his experiments and test subjects. That had past. In a short amount of time, she turned from a product and future weapon, to just Xaviera, his charge and genetic relative. He can't remember when the change happened, but it did. He is reminded of a saying_: incurvatus in se ipsum_. Love that is bent towards self. It means that you only really, _truly_ care for someone if they reflect you. An egotistic way of thinking, but it's the _only_ way Vexen can put it.

He puts down his knife and fork, and talks quietly. "Of course not, dear. I haven't heard anyone-"

"Don't lie, Daddy."

"I'm not lying. I-"

"Don't lie, _Father._" She only calls Vexen father if she is being as serious as a mature adult or is angry with him. He hopes it's the former and not the latter.

"I know people don't like the idea of me existing" she continues, looking at him through her eyelashes, "and they think my fake heart is just as bad as not having one at all. Like the Nobody you once were."

She knows that she is a phoney life form, and that makes him uneasy. It didn't at first, when she was just his object of experiment, but now he had formed a bond with her, it made him… sad. Quite sad actually. He speaks truthfully.

"Yes… People say things about you…" He bites the inside of his mouth. "Please, don't make me repeat everything they had said. I rather not."

Xaviera gives a single understanding nod, eyes now fixated on the centre of the table, the vase of slightly wilting flowers from the castle's garden.

"…Some think I shouldn't have been created at all" she says eerily quiet, not in a form of a question.

"Yes," Vexen answers, with a nod.

"…Something believe I should be… gone."

Vexen sighs deeply as he speaks. "Yes."

Xaviera leaves to table quickly, leaves the kitchen and their quarters completely, closing the door behind her. Vexen heard her sniff before she left, so he gives her a thirty minutes head start to let her calm down, and to give himself time to tidy up the dinner table, before he goes to her hiding place in the centre courtyard.

Her hiding spot is right next to the fountain tucked away in a lone corner. Xaivera is sat on her bench - the one she always sits on when she is in a mood with something - and has her head in her hands, sniffing and making sobbing noises, and whimpers like a kicked puppy. Vexen finds a clean tissue in his pocket and taps her on shoulder, offering the crumpled paper to her. She takes it, not looking at him and blows her nose.

Vexen takes a seat next to the child and beginning to talk. "When they found me washed-up on the beach of Destiny Island more than a year ago, people wanted me gotten rid of too. I probably would have been destroyed if it wasn't for this." He taps the left side of the chest.

Xaviera lifts her head slightly, looking at Vexen through her hair. He pushes the locks out of the way, only to have it slide back down.

"That's different" she mumbles. "You were not brought back by choice."

"I know… I was the first one" Vexen continues. "Remember. First the die, first to rise. It was… pretty lonely, being the only one around with that problem." He leans a little closer. "Just like you are feeling like at the moment." He puts his arm around her, trying to be nice and smiles slightly. "Would you like some friends?"

Xaviera nods, smiling a bit. "I would like friends my own age" she admits. "Not that you and the other grown-ups are bad or anything… Will the other children like me?"

"Of course. Just don't be a smartarse all the time."

The girl laughs in her cackling way and chokes down a sob in her throat. The tears subside and she feels better about everything for now. The feeling of depression and anger about people hating her will come back now and again, but she will be fine. Theywill all be alright.

Vexen does what he (now) normally does with her, and pulls the small girl onto his lap, and Xaviera rests her head on his shoulder.

"Am I one of your better experiments?" she asks.

"One of the best" the man answers, and he kisses her hair, which smells of shampoo and laboratory chemicals and oil. He smirks. "I don't know why everyone complains when they hold you. You feel warm to me."

She laughs again, and they stay out in the garden for a long time. It's a cool night, and the sky is an odd mixture and purple and violet and burning orange across the horizon. Some stars are already visible, so they talk about the different worlds out there in the black sky, and Xaviera makes a sleepy, mumbled oath that one day, when she is bigger and older and wiser, she will visit every place and location out there. Vexen gives her a warning that there are some worlds that should never be visited by anyone, speaking from first-hand experience.

After much trivial chitchat, Xaviera falls asleep while Vexen is talking about getting his small study converted into her bedroom. He sighs, shaking his head and carries her back inside.

Tomorrow, they will fight about the state the girl leaves the bathroom in every morning.


End file.
